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Friday, January 25, 2013

New Work, New Series

Finally! I have four new pieces completed in my new series! I started these pieces on January 3rd, 2013 with the intent on having a new series that still played with the idea of forgotten memories and old photographs, but also incoroporated some color and other elements I had been thinking of. I didn't want to stray too far from my previous work, but instead I wanted the new paintings to be a continuation of what I was doing and have it look like a natural progression.

I actually completed five paintings, but one of them was feeling like it didn't belong with the rest of the work so I am not showing it. I may wipe it out completely or try and tweak it a bit and see what happens. We'll see... In the meantime, I would REALLY appreciate feedback on the new work.

"Her Dirty Laundry" 36"x36"
This was the first painting I started. The images are from two separate
photographs but I liked how they played against each other.

Untitled, 24"x48"
This piece was one I really struggled with. I originally liked the size and shape of the
panel and thought it would work perfect with the figure. Later, trying to fill the space
was troublesome. I had a few versions of this painting but none of them felt resolved.
Even now I feel like it could use something else. I may end up changing this some more
later.

"Looking Down on the World" 40"x30"
I don't have much to say about this one. I like that the orange bar on top
looks like it's pushing down on the figure, compressing him in the space.
My husband said it looked like a giant looking down on the world below,
hence the title.

Untitled, 36"x36"
The great thing about this piece is that it looks like a composite of two photos
but it is actually just one. It looks like this woman saw a pelican and got as close
as possible to it in order to take the picture. It was such a quarky image, I had
to paint it.

8 comments:

Nice to see new work so soon. There is definitely still a sense of longing and memory in this series. It seems to have darker slightly more sinister feel to it though. Especially 'her dirty laundry'. The red stripes are undoubtedly a reference to the USA (for me), so I think I get an overall sense of a sense of alienation, or perhaps a sadness for what America is/has become. I'm not sure exactly, but I see a relationship between America and absence in this series.

Thank you for the feedback! This is not the first time that I have heard that my work brings on feelings of sadness for what America has become and a longing for the past. I think this is why people like vintage photos and images. It reminds us of a simpler times...

I think the color and composition of these images let us interact more with these painting than the previous ones. I like the feeling of more picture planes. It feels like you are putting more of your personality into them and that you aren't holding us at arms length as much. There's more of a sense of whimsy. "Untitled" has so much tension. It makes me anxious. Thanks for finally sharing the latest paintings!

Thank you Adrianne for the feedback! The previous series was pretty straight forward: find a good image, crop out what I didn't like, paint image to look like the photo. With these paintings I have so much more input into what I am doing, if that makes any sense. I love the division of space and playing with color.:-)

About Me

Jhina Alvarado is a self-taught artist who is represented by galleries across the United States. Her work has been featured in various international and national magazines, blogs, and art technique books. She currently works part-time as a calculus and pre-calculus teacher at the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts and paints full-time in her home studio in San Francisco.
Visit her website at www.jhinaalvarado.com